Posted in: Movies, News | Tagged: Brigitte Lin, chen kaige, Chinese cinema, Chinese history, chris chibnall, Crystal Yu, dante lam, doctor who, jet li, john woo, Once Upon a Time in China, Peking Opera Blues, pirate queen, Shin Queen of the Sea, Swordsman 2, tsui hark, Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain

Tsui Hark to Produce Chinese Pirate Queen Epic Shin, Queen of the Sea

Tsui Hark will produce and hopefully director Shin, Queen of the Sea, a feature film about the most successful pirate queen in history.

Tsui Hark, a pioneer of the Hong Kong New Wave and one of the best action directors in the world, will co-produce the Chinese pirate epic Shih, Queen of the Sea. Hark will partner with screenwriter Anthony McCarten, Dakota Group, and Facing East. The movie will be about a real-life woman who was the most successful pirate in history.

According to Deadline, McCarten wrote the script about Ching Shih, aka Shih Yang, aka Cheng I Sao, who dominated the South China Sea during the Qing Dynasty. Born into poverty, she worked on a "flower boat" brothel where she met the notorious pirate leader Cheng Yi, joining him at sea. Upon his death in 1807, she assumed full command of the fearsome Red Flag Fleet, commanding over 1,800 pirate ships and an estimated 80,000 pirates. By comparison, Blackbeard commanded four ships and 300 pirates within the same century. Shih introduced sweeping reforms to the rules of piracy, executing men for rape and marital infidelity and insisting on equality between the sexes. Much of what is known in the West about her is due to the writings of an English diarist, Richard Glasspoole, who was captured by her and later formed a strong bond with her. McCarten is the screenwriter of Bohemian Rhapsody, The Theory of Everything, The Two Popes, Darkest Hour, and many other films. The story of Madam Ching is a no-brainer for a producer and director of Tsui Hark's caliber since indomitable heroines have been his stock-in-trade since the 1980s while Hollywood still struggles with "strong female characters."

Tsui Hark has directed numerous Hong Kong classics like Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain (1983), Peking Opera Blues, and the Once Upon A Time In China films, which launched Jet Li to superstardom. He also transformed Brigitte Lin into a star when he cast her as the trans-martial artist Asia the Invincible in Swordsman 2. He helped launch the international career of John Woo when he produced the latter's A Better Tomorrow and The Killer. He produced and directed the subversive Chinese military hit The Taking of Tiger Mountain (2014). In 2021, he produced and co-directed with Chen Kaige and Dante Lam the $200 million war epic The Battle of Lake Changjin, which grossed $913 million, the highest-grossing Chinese film ever. He then directed and produced Water Gate Bridge (2022), the film grossed $556 million, making it the highest-grossing film of 2022.

"I couldn't be more excited to tackle the vastly cinematic and almost unbelievable story of Shih Yang, who, as Anthony superbly tells it, and as history confirms, rose from being a poor worker on a Canton floating brothel to command a vast pirate fleet who could not be defeated by the combined colonial powers of the British, Dutch and Portuguese or by the naval force of the Qing Dynasty," Tsui Hark said.

The last time Madame Chin appeared on the screen was in The Doctor Who Special "Legend of the Sea Devils," where she was played by Chinese-British actress Crystal Yu, but in typical Chris Chibnall fashion, the story failed to do anything interesting with the character. Hopefully, Tsui Hark's movie will finally bring her story properly to the screen.

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